Film and cameras that are all in one, commonly referred to as single-use or disposable cameras, have recently become well known. Typically, the single-use camera is a simple point-and-shoot type which comprises a plastic light-tight inner body housing a fixed-focus taking lens, a film metering mechanism, a single blade shutter, a frame counter for indicating the number of exposures remaining for picture-taking, possibly a built-in electronic flash unit, and a decorative cardboard outer cover or casing containing the light-tight inner body and having respective openings for the taking lens, a shutter release button, a film advance thumbwheel, a direct see-through viewfinder, the frame counter, and a flash emission window. At the manufacturer, the light-tight inner body is loaded with a 12, 24, or 36 exposure 35 mm film cassette and substantially the entire length of the unexposed filmstrip is factory prewound from the cassette onto a spool in the inner body or simply into a roll. Then, after the photographer takes a picture, he or she manually rotates the thumbwheel to rewind the exposed frame into the cassette. The rewinding movement of the filmstrip the equivalent of slightly more than one frame width rotates a metering sprocket to decrement the frame counter to its next lower-numbered setting. Further details of this operation are disclosed in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 5,235,366, issued Aug. 10, 1993, and in U.S. Pat. No. 4,890,130, issued Dec. 26, 1989. When the maximum number of exposures available on the filmstrip are exposed and the filmstrip is completely rewound into the cassette, the camera is given to a photofinisher who first removes the cassette with the filmstrip from the inner body to develop the negatives and make prints for the customer and then forwards the camera to the manufacturer for recycling.
The customer may prefer to have a message or other information back printed on his or her prints. However, since most of the available space on the decorative outer cover of the single-use camera is filled with instructions or other detail, there typically is no space on the outer cover for writing a message to be back printed on the prints.